Thursday, December 19, 2013

THE COMING BAN ON INCANDESCENT LIGHT BULBS

I am going to beat a path down to my local hardware store and clean them out of their 40 and 60 Watt bulbs tomorrow.  I am going to buy them in Washington tax-free and haul them to Montana and put them inside a garbage can for safe EMP keeping.  Sometimes, you just need a low-wattage incandescent bulb to take the heat off an animal pen while providing light in the winter where milk and egg production is required (incandescents provide about 25% light and 75% heat for each Watt they consume).  Why Washington and haul them through three states?  Just because I can and I hate this place and the irrational regulation they place on everyone and everything.  Buying the bulbs here is symbolic as a way of saying I defy your stupid culture of control and dictation instead of true free market and choice (while saying they like choice in how to snuff the life of the unborn or elderly.....)  FREAKS!!  I also like the passive aggressive nature of them getting Lowe's tax-free statement at the end of the year and showing all the potential revenue they might otherwise have had if there were not people actively (and legally) working to beat their system of control.  Recently - they clamped down on out-of-state usage of the exemption to the point that many businesses will just simply quit offering it due to the paperwork storm it creates.  My solution?  I just move to businesses that still offer it and support them handily.  The greatest thing we could do to save the Union right now and avoid rioting and CWII in a year or two would be to cut most forms of local, State and Fed gov by up to 75%.  Our economy would rock - instead we are between a rock and a hard spot.  Almost so much government that it occupies such a large sector of our economy that cutting it would create more of a shock to the economy than just letting the collapse happen.  Truly, as a wicked nation, we have little or no escape - other than to get out of it (come ye out of Babylon sound familiar?) and start over once the carnage is over and the dust of the collapsing wreckage has fully settled.

Folks - if there is an EMP, most of the CFL and LED bulbs out there will fry.  Most people do not have the candle-making capabilities that they could have and will suffer in the cold and the dark, as Sarah Menet said in her interview.  If you have a supply of any of the three, each with their own inherent strengths, you have a tradeable that, in reality, is far better than gold.  A single bulb in a home with the solar panel or windmill power in battery and inverted for the few hours after dark will be just after water and food and heat in appreciation.   They, however, will need to be stored in a metal garbage can with a tight-fitting lid in your garage, or whatever.

If you are really savvy, you will have 12VDC LEDs and incandescents stored in a metal box in your bug-out trailer with a quick-disconnect on your battery system so you are ready to go at the last moment.

Here is what got me spun up:

Man Finds Loophole To Fight Government Tyranny…Of Light Bulbs

lightbulb
What many do not realize is that come Jan 1st 2014, the manufacturing or importation of incandescent light bulbs will be illegal in the United States.
The luminous prohibition was set in motion in 2007 with a bill that set strict minimum efficiencies that were impossible for traditional incandescent bulbs to meet.
Much like how gun controllers want to impose end around bans on firearms by requiring technological standards that don’t exist, such as microstamping, so too have the haters of the little bulb that has lit our nights for some 100+ years use standards that are impossible to meet.
The result, once the stockpiles of warm yellow incandescent light bulbs are gone, we as a nation will be FORCED to use those cold dead fluorescent bulbs or dimmer bank breaking LED lights that start at $15 a bulb.
After efforts in Congress to avert the light bulb prohibition (2011 Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act and Better Use of Light Bulbs Act) and give Americans the freedom to choose how they wish to light their homes failed, we were left with little option other than getting these new bulbs shoved down our throats.  Once again government chips away at the free market and forces itself into our bedrooms…and our dens…and our kitchens.
And what do we gain by having this regulation forced upon us?  Dead lights and empty wallets.
Not only that though, but the WAY the new lights work can cause risks from migraines to cancer.
Dr. Elma Baron, director in the lasers and photomedicine department at UH Case Medical Center in Cleveland:
“Ultraviolet light is similar to the ultraviolet wavelengths found in natural sunlight, and we do not want huge amounts or extra amounts of ultraviolet light on our skin because it can cause biological effects that can lead to cancer.
Though the doctor would add the risk would be highest when a defect in the coating was present, but the very design of the new bulbs  facilitate a higher likelihood of defects.
According to a 2012 Stony Brook University Study the twisty CFL bulbs, which use mercury, are much more likely to leak UV light compared to traditional fluorescent bulbs.
According to the research, many of these bulbs “have cracks in the phosphor coating, probably due to the fact that the coating is brittle and has trouble making the tight bends required to make these bulbs compact.”
The research concludes that exposure to the new bulbs cause damage to healthy skin cells similar to that of exposure to ultraviolet radiation.  It is at this point government will start to dictate how much radiation is “tolerable”.  Yet, if a batch of these especially defective lights were to get out you could be exposing yourself and your family to cancer causing radiation for YEARS.
Why are these new lights being forced on us again?  Does the government have nothing better to do than dictate that we must install cancer causing lights in our homes?
Apparently not, but this is America after all and we do love our loopholes.
One businessman who has not had his entrepreneurial spirit castrated by the federal government has begun to  sell incandescent lights that will not be affected.
Channeling Thomas Edison, Larry Birnbaum is exploiting the law’s exceptions to continue producing incandescent bulbs for the general public.
He is doing so by making the bulbs “rough service”, a category that is exempt from the ban.  Rough Service Bulbs were initially meant for industrial operations and are a bit more hearty than your regular bulb but they still glow that warm yellow light that we, as a species, have come to know and love over the past century.
Not waiting until the last minute Birnbaum has been selling his “reinvented” light bulb since 2010.  With about two dozen American workers outside of Indianapolis he builds his bulbs per government standards to qualify for the loophole.
The government requires that his bulbs have seven filaments rather than two, a brass base, and 1 millimeter thicker glass, and  be filled with a special mixture of argon and krypton to improve their lifespan.
Not only does the public now have an option to keep incandescent bulbs in their homes, but they will last longer.  The price for one of Birnbaums Newcandescent bulbs is about $1.44 per bulb, up a bit from the 80 cents or so a regular light bulb costs now.  But compared to what the government would force us to buy, LED lights starting out at about $15.00 a piece, it’s a steal.
While not as sexy as bootlegging and speakeasies, I am reassured in Birnbaum’s efforts.  Knowing that there are still Americans out there with the ingenuity and the drive to turn tyranny on its head and to buck the system gives me hope for our country yet.
If it’s between an over priced cancer causing dead light bulb or Newcandscent’s Liberty Light Bulb, I’ll be choosing the latter.
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Anyone interested in following my lead can purchase Newcandescent bulbs here:
http://www.newcandescent.com/

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